emerging senses

What does leadership look like within the emerging church? More than anything else the emerging leader is akin to a spiritual director. This of course does not mean that the spiritual director is the expert, rather what it speaks about is ability to wonder with others regarding the awareness of what the Spirit is up to and what the Spirit is calling us to do. The expert is actually the Spirit of God who is waiting to be called forth through each individual's awareness and action.

As a result the emerging leader will need to increase in gifted areas that include among other things and amazingly enough, listening, seeing, smelling, tasting and touching. An emerging leader will be able to engage and invite others into this similar way so that the community becomes a discerning community.

One of the best books I've read recently, that in my opinion gets at the leadership quality for the emergents is Leadership and The New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World by Margaret Wheatley. From the vantage point of the modern church the emerging church will appear to be in complete disarray and utter chaos. Discovering order in a chaotic world is also to discover order in the church that happens to find itself a part of that same chaotic world. This is in no way an explicitly 'religious' book on leadership. Rather Wheatley is an expert on complexity theory, the new science, and quantum physics. Her explanations for how systems emerge organically and how leaders can partner with existing patterns within the natural order are wonderfully refreshing and encouraging.

"Let anyone who has ears to hear listen!"..."To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in parables; in order that 'they may indeed look, but not perceive, and may indeed listen, but not understand, so that they may not turn and be forgiven...Do you understand?" Mark 4:9-13